Meeting people is easy...remembering names is hard.

Meeting new people here has been a little more difficult than we imagined, but should get easier as the semester continues. Aside from Rebecca's first week orientation, there have not been very many seminary or community-wide social gatherings. Although there are a lot of people here living on a small campus, everyone seems pretty wrapped up in whatever they are wrapped up in. The people are much more varied than one might think too, there are "kids" right out of college and older adults starting second careers. There are Minnesotans-for-life and people like us who have moved from other states...even other countries! There are people just starting out, people returning from internship, married couples who are both in school and married couples with babies and small children. It's quite a mix!

There are also not a lot of common areas, so the idea of seeing seminarians hanging around socializing with nothing to do is a sight I have not seen much of yet. Rebecca has made a few friends among her classmates though and Trip has met people playing Ultimate Frisbee with an open group that plays several times a week and a brass group that meets once a week. There is a soccer team too (The "Heretics") but we are way too lacking in soccer skills to join. Rebecca wants to start a kickball team in the spring.

Trip has also made a point to meet Rebecca for chapel at least once a week and have lunch together in the campus cafeteria, where we try to sit down with a new group of people every week. Luckily, it is not as cliquey as the high school cafeteria and we've met some very cool people so far.

We hope to keep meeting new people, but realize that once Trip has a 9-5 job, his hanging out on campus during the day will come to an end. And he will get a job. Oh yes. He will.